


Leviathans & Labyrinths

by BlueLightningAndNexus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Amnesia, Bandits & Outlaws, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Fantasy, Quests, Swordfighting, Swords & Sorcery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLightningAndNexus/pseuds/BlueLightningAndNexus
Summary: Based on my DnD campaign. A young woman, Gwen Creed, wakes up alone in the forest with no memories, and sets out on a quest to find out who she is. Along the way, she'll encounter strange adventurers, chaotic gods, and magnetic sorcerers.





	Leviathans & Labyrinths

Gwen woke up in the forest, alone.

The woods were dense, with thick leaves and long branches preventing the sun from touching her face. Noise immediately flooded Gwen’s ears: birds chirping in the distance, a nearby river flowing, flies buzzing next to her head. 

Gwen examined her arms, hands, legs. She was wearing a pair of worn leather boots, with tattered beige pants. A white cloak covered her arms and chest, the hood pulled up and obscuring most of her hair. 

She couldn’t remember how she got here. She couldn’t remember, well, anything. 

“Where am I?” she asked aloud. She had no idea which way was North, or where the nearest settlement was. She had no idea what these woods were even called, if they were called anything. 

“Also, who am I?” she asked, hoping in the back of her mind an answer to that question even existed. 

Something pressed against her thigh. Reaching into her pocket, she found a silver switchblade. Heavier than it looked. She slipped it back in her pocket. 

Individual sensations--the wind on her face, the grass in her fingers--felt familiar, but as she rose to her feet, Gwen felt overwhelming confusion. As if life itself was foreign. As if this was the first time she’d existed. 

“I...I remember my name. Gwendolyn Creed.” The word felt comfortable on her lips, like crawling into bed after a long day. She couldn’t explain how she knew her own name, but it was burnt into her mind, as if it were a brand on a tool. ‘Gwen’ sounded much better than ‘Gwendolyn,’ however. 

Gwen immediately started scanning her surroundings. No footprints led to the location, meaning she’d either been asleep for a long time, or the universe materialized her out of nothing and plopped her right under that tree. They seemed equally likely. 

Turning to the right, Gwen found a black bag, propped up against a nearby stump. Next to it, a brown leather quiver with 8 arrows inside, and a longbow, white and red. Again, no nearby footprints. When she opened the bag, she found stitches inside, spelling out GC. 

“Alright, this is mine.”

Gwen examined the contents inside the bag. A hatchet. Some rope. A small bag of golden coins. An arrowhead. A bag of nuts. Two kunai. 

Those last items intrigued Gwen the most. After devouring the nuts, she held one kunai in her hand, but didn’t know  **how** to hold it. There was no muscle memory, no eureka moment. It was just a foreign slice of metal between her fingers. 

“I...guess I know how to use these?”

Throwing the bag on her back, Gwen diverted her attention to the bow and arrows. She took the longbow in her left hand, but immediately stopped.  _ Which is my dominant hand? s _ he thought to herself. 

Trying both ways, Gwen found that neither was more comfortable than the other. “I guess I’m ambidextrous,” she muttered. “How do I know the word ambidextrous, but I don’t know who I am?”

Settling on the left-handed position for this experiment, Gwen took the handle of the bow in her left hand and pulled back with her right. A current went through her. Her footing adjusted automatically, her eyes focused, her hands steady. 

“Okay, now  **this** I’ve definitely used before!” she said, excitedly. “This is definitely my bow.”

Gwen threw the quiver onto her back, and tucked the longbow into a strap on the side of the black bag. Glancing to the left and right, she found nothing else. 

With no other obvious options, and the dryness in her throat growing with each breath, Gwen started towards the river. Her stomach growled every other step. She needed water, and after that, food. 

After a few minutes of walking, Gwen came to the river and she fell to her knees at the bank, mud staining her pants. The water was clear, and she found her own reflection staring back at her. Gwen brought a finger to her tanned face and watched her reflection do the same. Her eyes were a neutral, cloudy gray, her hair the color of night. She pulled down the hood, and found a french braid, occasional strands of white hair interlocking with black. 

Dipping her hands in the river, Gwen cupped them together and brought some water to her lips. She did this again, and again, and once more, until her thirst was quenched. Drops of water rolled off her calloused hands, back into the source. 

Gwen rose to her feet, looking down the river. She was on a slight incline, and down the hill, to where the river ended, she saw smoke. Smoke meant fire. Fire meant people. And people might mean answers to her questions. 

As Gwen walked down the river, she looked into her own mind. She remembered her name. She remembered how to use a bow. She remembered how to tie her shoes, how to skin an animal, how to hunt, how to string a bow, how to braid her hair. 

But, she couldn’t remember other things. Did she have parents?  _ Well, I suppose everyone has parents, but are mine alive?  _ she thought to herself. 

How old was she? Where was she born? Where did she get the clothes on her back, or the bow? Did she make them? 

Did she have any siblings? Friends? Lovers? 

“I don’t even know how I swing,” she realized, running a gloved hand over her face. 

Gwen was so focused on her thoughts and questions she almost missed the increase of smoke, the scent of ash in the restless air, the shouting. 

She broke into a sprint. A kunai gripped firmly in her hand, Gwen bolted down the hill. Shouting and fires burning replaced the sound of rushing river water. Hilles and thick trees were scattered around town, lining the landscape. 

The town was ablaze. Smoke filled the sky, turning the horizon from a deep marine blue to a lifeless gray. A moat surrounded the town of Lazva-- _ Wait, how did I know that? _ \--but the gate was open and the bridge had been lowered. Citizens ran out, chased by bandits clad in dark grays and blacks the same color as the smoke they created. Blood stained the grass, rolling off the blades like morning dew. 

Screams of help echoed throughout the town, but Gwen barely registered them. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise, and she ducked just in time. An arrow whizzed by, whistling in her ears. 

Gwen flipped around, and saw one of the bandits on the other side of the moat, pulling on the string of his bow. In an instant, Gwen pulled her own bow off her back, an arrow in her right hand. She rolled out of the way, dodging another arrow and shooting one at her attacker. It sailed across the murky water of moat, hitting him square in the neck. Blood shot out of the wound. 

The sound of hooves on wood caught her attention. Gwen spun around--bow still in hand, another arrow drawn--and found one of the bandits rushing at her from horseback on the bridge leading into Lazva. In the blink of an eye a second arrow was fired at him. The second bandit was dead before his horse left the bridge.

Gwen scanned the town. Who were these people? Would these bandits have any information on her? Or were they just chaotic savages, pillaging one town after another, with no regard for the lives they took, the families they destroyed? 

Gwen bolted over to the bridge, stepping over a trail of bodies. A mother holding her son. A husband shielding his wife. She had to close her eyes; tears threatened to pour. She had the skills to help these people, but more than that, she felt a sense of...kinship. Perhaps she knew them before she lost her memories. 

But now wasn’t the time to ponder the nature of her amnesia. Leaving tracks of mud and blood, Gwen made her way into the town. A massive building dead ahead--which she somehow knew as being City Hall--was ablaze. Embers and ash spread the inferno to other nearby structures. 

Gwen’s gaze fell to a space between two buildings, a dirty alleyway caked with gore and dirt. A bandit with a khopesh had cornered two young women. Were they sisters? Mother and daughter? Gwen didn’t care. She saw red. 

Switchblade in hand, Gwen rushed at him. The bandit--a short woman with a shaved head and a scar across her face and neck--saw Gwen out of the corner of her eye. She shifted positions and took a swing at Gwen; the younger woman came to a grinding halt, her momentum nearly carrying her into the blade. The bandit missed by an inch, took a step forward, and readied for another swing. This time, Gwen lunged forward right as the khopesh reached the pinnacle of its arc. Gwen stabbed the switchblade into the woman’s heart, holding her sword-arm in her other hand. The bandit gasped, hopelessly grasping at the knife, before falling over. She was dead before she hit the ground. Her lifeless eyes stared back up at Gwen. 

“It’s not safe here,” Gwen told the two women. “Follow the river up north, there should be a clearing there. Wait here until I’m done with them.”

The two women nodded in agreement. The taller of the two wrapped an arm around her shorter companion, and they took off. 

Gwen examined the corpse she had created. The third in as many minutes. She thought she might throw up, but now isn't the time. Something--a nostalgic feeling, maybe a tug from her previous life--kept her in this town that was screaming “danger” at her. She’d already killed three bandits and saved two people. She might as well finish what she started. 

Taking the khopesh in her left hand, Gwen examined the weapon. It was heavier than she thought, and while she wasn’t used to the weight distribution-- _ Clearly I didn’t use a weapon like this before _ \--she had no problems adjusting quickly. 

Gwen rushed back out into the streets. Next to the burning remnants of City Hall, a new wave of bandits had cornered several young men and women her age. While the townsfolk were armed with whatever they had on hand--butcher knives, cleavers, batons, lumber axes--they were falling like flies. These bandits weren’t like the ones on the outskirts of the town; these were experienced fighters, decked out in armor and attacking with precision and efficiency. 

Gwen cursed. In an instant, she was charging forward, khopesh in hand. She barely made it five feet. 

A rider on horseback shot by, using a hooked blade to pull the blade out of her left hand. Gwen’s sudden disarmament caught her off guard, and she almost lost balance. 

“You’ve killed some of my men, girlie.” 

The bandit’s voice was smooth as silk, but it did little to hide an emotion Gwen instantly recognized as bloodlust. “You’ve killed some of my neighbors,” she replied. 

The man laughed, and Gwen could only assume it was because of how out-of-place she looked. The man pulled at the reigns of his horse, and the stallion charged forward. Gwen rolled out of the way just in time to dodge a low attack from the hooked blade, which skimmed the center of her back. The man wasted little time in attacking again, this time pulling out a broadsword sword and slashing at her. With the efficiency of a trained fighter, Gwen reached into her bag and pulled out a kunai. Using it in tandem with her switchblade, she parried the attack. Once he was out of range, she threw the kunai at him, which missed his shoulder by a hair. 

_ I won’t last long like this,  _ she thought.  _ He has the advantage in weapons, height. Hell, he’s even on horseback.  _

Gwen readied her bow and arrow once more, but when she pulled the arrow in hand, her blood went cold. His second strike wasn’t aiming for her head; it was her quiver. He’d chopped all the tails off her arrows. They were useless. Any witty remark she had about how she underestimated him died on her tongue. 

“Don’t you see now, girlie?” he asked. “You’re in over your head.”

Gwen broke into a sprint, eyes scanning the road.  _ Think, think! Someone must have dropped a weapon I can use somewhere.  _

The black stallion charged at her. Gwen’s lungs were burning, and she gave one quick look back at the townsfolk being slaughtered. She bolted in the opposite direction, approaching the town marketplace. 

Gwen’s eyes found the body of a young man on the street. A woodsman clad in red and beige, he had an arrow between his wide-open eyes. The otherwise grisly sight nearly made Gwen smile. 

As the bandit’s leader charged at her, angling his hooked sword for another attack, Gwen rolled out of the way. As her momentum decreased, she tumbled next to the corpse, and pulled the arrow out of his head. Before she even felt the wood in her hand, her bow was already drawn back, the arrow aimed at the bandit leader. 

The leader had a moment of faint realization in his eyes before the arrow pierced his head. The horse neighed and raced off; the leader was still strapped to the saddle for a moment. When the horse on the saddle finally broke off, the leader’s body tumbled and fell next to Gwen. She examined the weapons he held, specifically the broadsword. 

While she was one khopesh short, Gwen might have gained a new weapon. She picked up the broadsword, examining the handle carvings. 

“Oh, fuck yes. I’ve DEFINITELY used one of these, before.” 

For the first time all morning, Gwen felt herself smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a crossover DnD campaign idea I had, which incorporated elements from several major RPGs (The Witcher, Skyrim, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Tales, etc.) but I fell in love with this OC of mine and decided to make it an original setting. This will be a rather small and experimental narrative. I have a love interest for Gwen planned, but they'll probably be the only consistent characters in this story.


End file.
